Robot 6

Comics A.M. | The comics Internet in two minutes

Publishing | The penultimate issue of DC Comics’ Blackest Night miniseries led a weak February in the direct market, which saw comic-book sales slip 3 percent from the same month a year ago. Sales of graphic novels, on the other hand, actually rose 1 percent — the category’s first increase since March 2009 — which the retail news and analysis website ICv2.com notes is “somewhat remarkable given that over 12,000 copies of Watchmen were sold in February 2009, over 10 times the number sold in February of 2010.”

Blackest Night #7 sold more than 130,000 copies, followed at No. 2 by Marvel’s Siege #2, with about 108,400. They were the only titles to break 100,000 in February. ICv2 notes that sales of Blackest Night increased some 30 percent from the previous issue’s first month while those of Siege were virtually unchanged. That seems like an impressive performance for both titles.

The 13th volume of Vertigo’s Fables topped the graphic-novel chart with sales just shy of 12,000, followed by the Kick-Ass Premiere Hardcover with just over 9,000. [ICv2.com]

That note about sales of Blackest Night being ” up 30% from the previous issue’s first month sales” is kind of misleading, considering the previous issue’s sales were split between December and January because of some retailers not signing up to sell BN #6 during the post-Christmas skip week. The total then is 135,985 (although that includes reorders in January, too, so it’s not apples-to-apples either), meaning BN #7 was down about 4%. Which is still pretty dang impressive.